Tag Archive | "Mercola"

S.1310: Dietary Supplement Labeling Act of 2011, introduced at the end of June by U.S. Senator Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) is, using Byron J. Richards’ words, “an alarming regulatory nightmare that is trying to treat vitamins as if they are drugs.”

Its stated purpose is to:

“… improve the safety of dietary supplements by amending the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to require manufacturers of dietary supplements to register dietary supplement products with the Food and Drug Administration and to amend labeling requirements with respect to dietary supplements.”

As is typical of most diabolical laws, it initially sounds harmless enough. But there’s more. Durbin’s bill goes hand-in-hand with new FDA regulations that amend the definitions for new dietary ingredients (NDI’s), and together, they can threaten your health and freedom of choice, and further serve to strengthen the fatally flawed paradigm of health and medicine.

We’ve seen proposed legislation that sorely threatens your health and well-being before, but this time they’re really trying to hit the alternative health field, and your right to take control of your own life, hard.

For comparison, look at the latest statistics available from the U.S. National Poison Data System, which covers acute poisonings. In 2007, 1,597 people reportedly died from drugs. Meanwhile there was not one single fatality caused by a vitamin or dietary mineral supplement that year. Yet, Durbin and the FDA want you to think that they’re just acting in your best interest. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Up to this point, the FDA has had to prove a supplement unsafe in order to take action against it, but now they want the supplement industry to prove the safety of what in many cases amount to food, before they can reach the market.

Why add an extremely costly testing and approval process for compounds that are inherently safe? Well, an obvious side effect of these proposed regulations will be the elimination of small and medium sized companies, which in turn will drive up costs while at the same time reduce your access to historically safe nutritional products. The end result is that fewer people will use supplements to improve their health; driving them back into the extremely profitable fold of conventional medicine and drugs.

“The elimination of health options is required for the control of a population, while the preservation of health freedom is a leading indicator of the overall freedom within a society… [T]he control of health options is as important as the control of food and money.

… Big Pharma influences Republicans by aligning itself as a corporate conglomerate that is too big to fail, one that should be free of prudent safety regulations or reduction in grotesquely inflated prices. It fights against drug safety at every turn, while at the same time lobbying to pass laws that lock in sales or eliminate its competition.

The media plays along, as Big Pharma is a wonderful source of advertising dollars that are in no small part made possible by taxpayer funding of Big Pharma drug sales. While Big Pharma sees many aspects of the dietary supplement industry as competition, it is also the case that many pharmaceutical companies are in some aspect of the dietary supplement industry, often as raw material suppliers.

Big Pharma does not want to see the dietary supplement industry eliminated, it wants to see the small and medium sized independent businesses in the dietary supplement industry eliminated and it wants to own the industry. Their key strategy to accomplish this at this time is to lobby to pass costly laws and regulations which they can comply to and which other smaller, independent companies cannot. “

The Second Part of an Orchestrated Attack

Back in the early 1990s, the FDA threatened the availability of dietary supplements to the point that consumers staged a massive revolt, which resulted in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). The law specifically protects your access to dietary supplements by classifying them as foods, not food additives or drugs, and it grand-fathered in dietary supplements that were already in use as of 1994. Only novel ingredients introduced after October 15, 1994 are required to seek FDA approval.

Now, along with Durbin’s bill, the FDA has concocted new proposed mandates regarding the definition of a New Dietary Ingredient , known as NDI, that can be retroactively applied to products already on the market.

“It is important to understand that this is a Durbin effort to ruin the dietary supplement industry, using both newly proposed legislation (S.1310) and retroactively redefining the DSHEA law through new FDA regulations to reflect what is being proposed in S.1310 – undermining the clear intent of the DSHEA law.

the Federal Government should not take any actions to impose unreasonable regulatory barriers limiting or slowing the flow of safe products and accurate information to consumers;

dietary supplements are safe within a broad range of intake, and safety problems with the supplements are relatively rare;

and legislative action that protects the right of access of consumers to safe dietary supplements is necessary in order to promote wellness

The proposed mandates directly contradict what DSHEA sought to prevent, and the FDA is using its authority in direct violation of Congressional intent. As explained in an article by Alliance for Health, the proposed regulations turn what was clearly supposed to be a pre-market notification system into a pre-approval system, just like that of drugs. As a result, dietary supplements that have been freely available for nearly two decades can be forced off the market until they receive NDI approval. And the NDI approval process is a lengthy affair that may take months or years to complete, and cost a small fortune.

What might make an “old” ingredient “new,” under the new regulation?

The methods of production and extraction, for example… As bizarre as that sounds, the mere fact that a product is being extracted or produced by improved means compared to methods used in the past, could reclassify any grandfathered nutrient as an NDI that would now have to undergo the same type of safety testing and approval process as a drug.

Ridiculously Excessive Safety Testing Would be Required Under New Rules

If the FDA and Durbin get their way, once a supplement is taken off the market pending approval as an NDI, the manufacturer would have to conduct outrageously expensive studies using abnormally high doses—in some situations multiplied by a “safety factor” up to 2,000-times the recommended dosage on a per product basis. In fact, some of the safety thresholds are in excess of those required by pharmaceutical drugsdespite studies showing supplements are FAR safer than drugs!

An estimated 106,000 hospitalized patients die each year from drugs that, by medical standards, are properly prescribed and administered, and two million more suffer serious side effects. How does the safety of supplements compare?

In 2001, 84.6 percent of all substances implicated in fatal poisonings were pharmaceutical drugs, according to that year’s American Association of Poison Control Centers (AAPCC) report. This compares with 0.8 percent for all dietary supplements combined, even including substances such as dinitrophenol, a dangerous (and illegal) substance banned in 1938, as well as the central nervous system stimulant Ma Huang (Ephedra).

ONE drug alone, the anti-asthma drug theophylline, which was responsible for 15 deaths that year, amounted to 66 percent more than all the available dietary supplements combined.

Now, since dietary supplements are not patented drugs with outrageous profit margins, very few supplement makers will be able to afford the required safety studies, which could run in the millions of dollars per ingredient! Furthermore, the manufacturer is not the only one that would have to seek approval—every distributor that wants to use the NDI would have to file a separate NDI application.

Get Involved NOW!

Folks, this is not the time to doze off on the sidelines. Durbin’s bill and the FDA proposed mandates for NDI’s are a poorly veiled attempt to usurp your rights and health freedom. As Richards writes:

“This chess game is being played with a pathetic opening strategy based on imaginary safety problems. The gambit requires an ignorant public for its success.“

It’s time to prove them wrong yet again, just like we did back in 1994. The open comment period on the FDA’s proposed guidelines expires on September 30, 2011. It’s vitally important for everyone to file a written protest and not allow them to rewrite the intent of the DSHEA law. Durbin’s bill and the FDA proposal pose a direct threat to your health and longevity, so please, step up and defend your right to continue using supplements and to gain access to new natural ingredients with demonstrated efficacy by following the steps outlined below:

Write to your State Senators and tell them to beware of S.1310 and to vote NO on it.

Send a letter to your Representative and two Senators demanding the FDA immediately withdraw their oppressive proposed guidelines pending rationale discussions with those who depend on dietary supplements to protect their health and livelihood. You can do this easily by logging into www.lef.org/lac, or use the sample letter below.

Empower yourself today. Recall how Consumers revolted back in 1994 and the result was a glorious victory over FDA tyranny!

Let your voice be heard by logging on to www.lef.org/lac today and exercising your right to petition the government against these serious violations of the law and scientific principle.

SAMPLE FDA PETITION:

PLEASE NOTE, it is best if you customize or change the letter below to state your specific concerns and beliefs as it will be better. If you are unable to then you can send the one below but it will work MUCH better if you can customize it.

TO: Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition

Office of Nutrition, Labeling and Dietary Supplements

Food and Drug Administration

5100 Paint Branch Pkwy.HFS-009

College Park, MD 20740-3835

Telephone:1-888-723-3366

Fax: (301) 443-9767

On July 11, 2011, President Obama issued an Executive Order that requires the FDA to:

Make regulatory decisions only after consideration of their costs and benefits (both quantitative and qualitative).

Review significant regulations to make sure they are not excessively burdensome.

Develop and release to the public a plan within 120 days under which the FDA will periodically review its existing significant regulations to determine whether any such regulations should be modified, streamlined, expanded, or repealed so as to make the agency’s regulatory program more effective or less burdensome in achieving the regulatory objectives.

I demand that you immediately disregard all the proposals you outlined and instead consider a rationale and scientific approach to regulating new dietary ingredients that will be submitted to you by the Alliance for Natural Health within the next 180 days.

Your proposed guidelines on New Dietary Ingredients will cause the price of my supplements to skyrocket and some of these life-sustaining supplements are likely to disappear altogether.

This is not acceptable, especially when there are no significant reports of adverse reactions to the supplements you plan to ban.

In as much as your threat to ban my access to new dietary ingredients is causing me great anxiety which is injurious to my health, I insist that you immediately put your proposed new rules on hold for a 180 day period so that the Alliance for Natural Health can draft guidelines that will protect me against unsafe ingredients without destroying my access to low cost effective nutrients.

Sincerely,

Name___________Address____________City___________ST____ Zip___

SAMPLE LETTER TO CONGRESS:

The Honorable ______________________, Washington, DC

In direct violation of the law, the FDA is threatening to ban my access to new dietary supplements.

The FDA defines dietary supplements as being “new” if they were introduced after October 15, 1994. That means that nutrients that I have been safely using over the course of three decades will be subject to FDA’s oppressive policies that mandate costly animal testing, which translates into forced withdrawal from the market, and higher prices for me if the supplement is ever allowed to be sold again.

The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 states that:

“The Federal Government should not take any actions to impose unreasonable regulatory barriers limiting or slowing the flow of safe products and accurate information to consumers.”

It says that Congress finds that:

“dietary supplements are safe within a broad range of intake, and safety problems with the supplements are relatively rare.”

And it says that:

“legislative action that protects the right of access of consumers to safe dietary supplements is necessary in order to promote wellness.”

This draft guidance does the exact opposite of what Congress intended. It imposes unreasonable barriers that limit and slow the flow of safe products and accurate information to consumers. I call upon Congress to:

Uphold the landmark legislation it passed seventeen years ago, and to direct the FDA to revise its New Dietary Ingredient draft guidelines to reflect DSHEA’s (and Congress’s) stated values and goals.

Vote against the newly introduced Dietary Supplement Labeling Act as this would give the FDA even greater arbitrary powers to remove safe dietary supplements from the market, which will a profoundly adverse impact on this nation’s health.

All of these proposals results in wasteful federal spending, while imposing a massive new “regulatory tax” on consumers and the vitamin industry.

Kindly let me know what actions you are taking in response to the urgent issues raised in this letter.

Sincerely,

Name______________Address____________City___________ST____ Zip___

SAMPLE FOIA REQUEST:

Below is a sample letter that you can use to select one or more of the 19 listed requests for records, or create your own individual request. You can then copy, edit, print, and send this to the FDA at the address on the letter. Please note that you are committing to paying a $25.00 charge if FDA agrees to respond to your request. The more records you request, the greater the FDA fees are likely to be. If you choose to file a Freedom of Information Act request, please read this letter carefully.

Date: _____________
Food and Drug Administration

Division of Freedom of Information

Office of Shared Services

Office of Public Information and Library Services

12420 Parklawn Drive

ELEM-1029

Rockville, MD 20857

Re: Freedom of Information Act Request

Dear FOIA staff:

Pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act, 5 U.S.C. §552, we wish to have copies at the earliest possible time, of any and all public records in the custody of the Food and Drug Administration that relate to the “Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues” released in July 2011.

I specifically request:

All records relating to the expenditure of time and money by FDA personnel (and outside consultants) in researching, drafting and promulgating the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to communication of FDA personnel with pharmaceutical company representatives (including lobbyists) that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to communication of FDA personnel with any member of Congress or Congress as a whole that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to communication of FDA personnel with any member of private industry that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to communication of FDA personnel with any scientific advisory committee, scientific advisory board, or individual scientist that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to communication of FDA personnel with FDA’ General Counsel’s office, or outside legal counsel that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to FDA’s evaluation of safety issues relating to new dietary ingredients that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to FDA’s decision to impose barriers that limit the ability of consumers to access new dietary ingredients that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to communication of FDA personnel with other FDA personal that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to communication of FDA personnel with personal from the Department of Health and Human Services that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to communication of FDA personnel with personal from the U.S. Treasury Department that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to the cost benefit analysis performed by FDA or outside consultants that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to financial estimates made by FDA personnel or outside consultants relating to the cost to the FDA of administering the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to financial estimates made by FDA personnel or outside consultants relating to the cost burden of the dietary supplement industry in complying with the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to what human and other resources within the FDA would be utilized to oversee and administer the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to what human and other resources within the FDA would be moved or transferred from other positions within the FDA in order to oversee and administer the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to communication of FDA personnel with the Department of Justice that in any way relate to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to the steps taken by the FDA to ensure the Administrative Procedures Act was fully complied with as it relates to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

All records relating to the steps taken by the FDA to ensure that provisions in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 was fully adhered to as it relates to the Draft Guidance for Industry: Dietary Supplements: New Dietary Ingredient Notifications and Related Issues.

I agree to pay any and all expenses up to $25.00 related to this request. If you anticipate that the nature or volume of the records requested is such as to require extensive use of information technology, resources, or extensive clerical or supervisory assistance by personnel of the Food and Drug Administration, and such expenses would exceed $25.00, I would appreciate being advised thereof in advance of the assembly of those records and the estimated charge in excess of $25.00, if any, for doing so.

If the FDA asserts an exemption from Public Records Act disclosure of any records falling within the scope of the above request, we request that it include in the records inspected, or otherwise make available to us as soon as possible and in no event no later than the date of the initial production of the records, a reasonable description of the nature of the records for which an exemption or exemptions are claimed and the statutory or other legal bases under any such exemption is claimed.

I would appreciate your contacting me, at ___________ at the earliest possible time to advise us of when the FDA will make the requested copies available.

Total Video Length: 1:12:45Download Interview TranscriptHere, Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety since 1997, and one of the United States’ leading environmental attorneys, shares his ideas about the ideal future of food.

Mr. Kimbrell is one of the United States’ leading environmental attorneys, and an author of articles and books on environment, technology and society, and food issues. He’s also the Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety, which he founded in 1997 as a way to prevent genetic engineering and sewage sludge remediation from becoming acceptable practices under the organic laws.

Organics and Beyond

But the Center for Food Safety has far grander goals than simply fighting for pro-organic laws.

“[W]e call it “Organic and Beyond,” Kimbrell says.

“We do that because we have to defend the organic standards. Over the last eight years, virtually the entire government’s all three branches, from judiciary to executive to congress, were trying to undermine the organic rule. It didn’t get as much publicity as it should have…

But we don’t want just to defend the organic rule in food. We want to evolve the ethic.

While organic is great and we need to defend that, we also want to make sure that we extend it to include for instance issues of animal welfare… We want to have bio-diverse crops… We want to make sure that our farming is local, in appropriate scale. We also want to make sure that we’re socially just. Just because we’re organic it doesn’t mean that we’re treating farm workers in a socially just manner.

Those are the beyond organic aspects of the future of food that we’re really interested in, which is a humane, local, appropriate scale, biodiverse, and socially just [system].

If we can think of the organic not as the ceiling for our food in the future but as the floor and we build this house, our future food house with those other elements… then I think we really will have done something.”

Saying “No” to Some Things is Saying “Yes” to Others

As you probably know, we are inundated with tens of thousands of chemicals these days, which have never before existed on Earth—many of which are extremely toxic. Much of the rise in chronic disease can be traced back to the excessive exposure to toxins from our food, air, water supply, and many of the personal- and household products we use on a daily basis.

What led us to this point?

In a word, technology.

For all the benefits and wonders many technologies bring, there are also some profound downsides, especially when they’re introduced without proper safety testing and forethought of the long-term consequences. Nuclear energy is just one glaring recent example. But this applies to food as well, as biotech has crept in to modify nature’s bounty in all sorts of ways, and mass-producing farms have altered the way food is grown to include massive amounts of chemicals.

“We’re saying, progress sometimes means saying no to these technologies and saying yes to a far more natural, a far more sustainable way of doing business. It’s quite a remarkable revolution, not just because of the food, but because of the consciousness.

It’s saying progress doesn’t mean more and more exploitation and manipulation of nature through technology, it means more and more integrating the human into the entire natural context and learning to live within that context.”

“We Defend what We Love”

Kimbrell’s passion for this work stems from learning to love nature through his brother, who was an avid outdoorsman. He also worked on a farm for two and a half years before going to law school, and while he loved it, he wasn’t very good at it. The farmer he worked for suggested he go to law school instead, and “see what you can do for farms and for the whole community of life that makes for a healthy farming system.”

It turned out to be good advice. Some of his first work as an environmental attorney was in defending rivers and natural areas from exploitation, which, over time “evolved into an understanding of how technologies were hurting the natural world.”

“Those two things – my love of the natural world and my work on a farm– sort of coalesced, if you will, to create my desire to use my legal skills and whatever skills we have, to accomplish the goals that we just talked about,” Kimbrell says.

Food and the Environment

As Kimbrell states in this interview, food is the most intimate relationship you have with your environment.

“I’m always amused when people say, I’m not interested in food issues, I’m interested in environmental issues. I would say, “Whoa, let’s sit down for a second to talk about that.” There is no more intimate relationship that we have with the environment than what we eat.

To me it is a great moment for everybody out there to say, ‘I’m making a choice every day—a choice that I can control to a great extent—of what I eat, what my family eats, and to a certain extent what people around me eat.

That is to me a really important moment, because in that moment, you can reflect your views on social justice, your views on animal welfare, your views on the environment, on protecting our waters, protecting our air, protecting our soil, protecting our farm communities and protecting our community health. All of that is based in that decision that we all make several times a day.”

The Dangers of Genetically Modified Foods

From Kimbrell’s perspective, as well as my own, genetically modified (GM) food is one of the biggest threats to life and health we currently face on this planet.

“It turns out that [genetic engineering] is a lot more difficult than people thought,” Kimbrell says. “There are a couple of reasons for that. For example, folks may remember the Human Genome Project. We were supposed to have about 100,000 to 140,000 genes. We only have about 20,000 genes it turns out. That’s about as many as a worm.

A kernel of corn has, any cell on that kernel has 35,000 genes… They just did the genome of wheat and it has 80,000 genes. So wheat has four times as many genes as humans.

It turns out that the biology of these crops isn’t some simple thing but extremely complex and it turns out there is a huge amount we do not know. So this idea that you can take a little piece of DNA called a gene and switch it around between plants and animals, and human and plants, and bacteria and plants, and get predictable results turn out not to be true.”

At the present time, the most prominent genetic modification of crops is the modification to make plants immune to herbicides.

Since you can spray these crops with large amounts of chemicals without killing the crop, this, in theory, should significantly reduce weed growth. However, in the years since the introduction of “RoundUp ready” corn and soy, we’ve witnessed increasingly profound downsides to these unnatural seeds, including brand new “super weeds” that are also impervious to RoundUp (glyphosate).

According to Kimbrell, we now have 10-20 million acres of these super weeds that you can’t kill. They’re the thickness of a baseball bat, and they loom six to seven feet tall!

GM Crops Demand HIGHER Levels of Toxic Herbicides and Pesticides

Additionally, what many fail to realize is the incredible increase in toxic chemicals being used on these crops, which eventually ends up in your stomach.

“[I]n the last two years we’ve sprayed 153 million more pounds of herbicide on our crops because of the corn and soy Roundup-ready crops…” Kimbrell says.

This dilemma is leading us further and further into a quagmire of increasingly toxic remedies.

“Right now, the FDA is looking to approve crops resistant to 2,4-D, which is an element in Agent Orange,” Kimbrell says. “I kid you not, Dow Chemical is doing this. Corn and soy that has been genetically engineered so you can spray as much 2,4-D (Agent Orange) on these crops as you want and it won’t kill them.

Now that Roundup is becoming less and less useful, they’re looking for newer and more toxic herbicides that they will bathe our crops in, in order to make money…

Monsanto is now coming up with Dicamba, which is extremely dangerous. It’s a volatilizing herbicide. In other words, you spray it and under certain weather conditions it’s going to go back up from the ground, re-volatilizing to a cloud and it could go a mile or two away and come back down and it will kill everything green. It’s a very toxic herbicide.”

This poses tremendous challenges for organic farmers, threatens our environment and human health everywhere, whether you happen to live in an agricultural area, or simply eat the food produced from these now highly toxic crops.

Where is the breaking point?

When will the food produced become too toxic to eat?

And what do we do then?

GM Foods Line the Pockets of Chemical Companies

There can be little doubt that the technology of genetically engineered crop seeds has little to do with saving the planet, and a lot to do with promoting herbicide use and increasing herbicide sales. The major purveyors of GM crop seeds also make the chemicals and herbicides to go along with those seeds.

These companies include:

Monsanto

Dow

Dupont

Syngenta

Bayer

BASF

“These are herbicide companies that have invented a way to sell a lot more of their chemicals,” Kimbrell says.

In the end, we may be over-run with superweeds that cannot be killed even by dousing it with Agent Orange, and GM crops that contaminate all its conventional and organic counterparts. That will be their legacy to our children and grandchildren…

Only Sustainable, Smaller-Scale Farming Can Successfully Feed the Planet

“I think one of the great things about the Organic and Beyond movement is that we are trying to go back and learn,” Kimbrell says. “We can use some modern technologies that help us better understand agronomy, but basically go back into a sustainable, smaller, more localized farming system.

What makes this so great is that two studies just came out of the UN, and it turns out that the way to feed the world is through small and medium sized organic and sustainable farms because they are creating a lot more food!

Right now, we have so many acres devoted to corn but you cannot live on corn alone. As a matter of fact you shouldn’t be living on much corn at all really. That’s not really food. That’s a crop. It’s a crop that’s used to feed animals, for biofuels and for fructose corn syrup and other additives.

Small medium sized farms have numerous diverse crops and animals. It’s a far more sustainable way to not produce massive crops but actual food.”

Change is an Uphill Battle that Oftentimes Requires Litigation

Unfortunately, despite the evidence showing that our current agricultural system is unsustainable, if not downright dangerous, change is hard to come by. The agricultural committees are primarily run by the agribusiness industry, which will always vote to protect their own best interests.

One effective way to slow down the madness, as it were, is through litigation. According to Kimbrell, litigation has halted the introduction of a number of genetically engineered crops, such as GM:

Wheat

Rice

Bentgrass

Market campaigns also successfully thwarted the introduction of GM tomatoes and potatoes.

“We can vote with our dollar in the marketplace by buying organic, by buying non-GMO,” Kimbrell says. “But we can also then make sure that we use the courts as best we can to halt some of these damaging technologies while we promote this Organic and Beyond vision. And everyone can get involved.”

Current Campaigns to Eliminate GMOs

The Center for Food Safety, along with a number of other organic businesses, organic organizations, and non-governmental organizations, are now starting a campaign to demand labeling of all GM foods. This is the most sensible strategy as over 90 percent of the public do not want GM foods and if they had a choice they would avoid Them. We don’t need legislation to outlaw GM, we just need an informed public to make the right choice.

Genetically engineered foods are required to be labeled in the 15 European Union nations, Russia, Japan, China, Australia, New Zealand, and many other countries around the world, but not the US or Canada…

“You’re looking at a food that offers you risk and no benefits. It is true because the companies and the government have never looked at it. We don’t know the exact extent of that risk but we know the risk is there.

What rationale person would ever pick a food if it was labeled? … The GMO offers me no additional benefits, and only additional health risks. What would you choose?

No one is going to choose the GMO version. That’s why they don’t want labeling.”

Another very important aspect of labeling is traceability of health effects. This can literally become a life and death issue. This is yet another reason why the industry is fighting tooth and nail to avoid labeling, because they know that without labeling it’s virtually impossible to trace any health effects that may be associated with the GM ingredients. This releases them from liability.

During the Presidential campaign of 2008, Obama put in writing a promise to support mandatory labeling on GMOs.

Also, if you don’t already have a copy of the Non-GMO Shopping Guide, please print one out and refer to it often. It can help you identify and avoid foods with GMOs. Also remember to look for products (including organic products) that feature the Non-GMO Project Verified Seal to be sure that at-risk ingredients have been tested for GMO content. Many health food stores will carry these products.

You can also download the free iPhone application that is available in the iTunes store. You can find it by searching for ShopNoGMO in the applications.

S 510 includes passages that would force harmonization with Codex Alimentarius. It is a name most people do not know and one that the media has not exposed though its consequences to human health would be extreme. Codex threatens the lives of millions through limiting access to adequate supplementation.

This “Codex” Commission is overwhelmingly composed of representatives of German and international pharmaceutical corporations, and its aim is to set world-wide guidelines for vitamins, amino acids, minerals and other dietary supplements. Spearheaded by the German pharmaceutical corporations, this Codex Commission plans to ban, on a world wide scale, any health statements in relation to vitamins, be it preventive or therapeutic. Moreover, the only vitamin formulas which would still be available would have to meet the arbitrary restrictions of the Codex Commission. The nations that do not comply with these restrictions are faced with economic sanctions.

These plans of the pharmaceutical corporations and the Codex Commission are in direct opposition to the overwhelming importance of vitamins and other essential nutrients for human health and, in particular, for preventing cardiovascular disease. …

With this background, the attack of the Codex Commission is a desperate act by pharmaceutical companies to protect their world-wide drug market against naturally effective and much more affordable vitamins. Particularly disturbing is the spearheading role of the German pharmaceutical corporations within the Codex Commission. Once before in this century, a German pharmaceutical and chemical corporation, I.G. Farben, became responsible for the deaths of millions of people and consequently, was dismantled in 1946 by the Nuremberg Tribunal and split into Bayer, BASF and Hoechst. With the current plans of the German pharmaceutical companies, the predictable dimension of the unnecessary and premature death of millions of people is unavoidable. If the Codex Commission is allowed to obstruct the eradication of heart disease by restricting access to nutritional supplements, more than 12 million people world-wide will continue to die every year from premature heart attacks and strokes. Within the next generation alone, this would result in over 300 million premature deaths, more than in all the wars of mankind together.

Codex for the US began on December 31, 2009. There have been five bills so far this year to remove access to supplements, if one adds S 3767 introduced by Senators Leahy, Klobuchar, and Franken on September 13th.

How dangerous are supplements that they are subject to FDA armed raids?

The value of supplements is abundantly clear to the pharmaceutical industry. When they were the main support for Germany during WWII, it was “A crime punishable by death to spread information in regard to nutrition in Norway, Belgium, Holland, and all other conquered countries.” - D.T. Quigley, MD, Fellow American College of Surgeons, in The National Malnutrition

While people may sense that the consequences of the removal of nutritional supplements would be serious, it is possible to see in advance what would result from Codex-compelled vitamin and minerals deficiencies. In viewing the list, however, it is important to realize that those born or already sick with diseases and certain groups such as children, pregnant women and the elderly would be impacted first, given their greatly elevated requirement for nutritional supplementation. And hyper-supplementation to actually treat diseases would be available. Adults who do not fall into those categories would became ill from lack of adequate nutrition, at which point they would join the ranks of the ill and their own nutritional requirements to sustain lives would go up.

This following list is brief, not including hundreds herbs or any of the specially combined nutritional formulations, including those with absolute evidence of their effectiveness, and the absence of which

“Adequate vitamin D status is necessary and beneficial for health, although deficiency plagues much of the world’s population. In addition to reducing the risk for bone disease, vitamin D plays a role in reduction of falls, as well as decreases in pain, autoimmune diseases, cancer, heart disease,mortality, and cognitive function. On the basis of this emerging understanding, improving patients’ vitamin D status has become an essential aspect of primary care. Although some have suggested increased sun exposure to increase serum vitamin D levels, this has the potential to induce photoaging and skin cancer, especially in patients at risk for these conditions.Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency can be both corrected and prevented safely through supplementation.”

Vitamin A deficiency is a lack of vitamin A in humans. It is common in developing countries but rarely seen in developed countries. Night blindness is one of the first signs of vitamin A deficiency.Xerophthalmia and complete blindness can also occur since Vitamin A has a major role in phototransduction. Approximately 250,000 to 500,000 malnourished children in the developing world go blind each year from a deficiency of vitamin A, approximately half of which die within a year of becoming blind. The United Nations Special Session on Children in 2002 set the elimination of vitamin A deficiency by 2010. The prevalence of night blindness due to vitamin A deficiency is also high among pregnant women in many developing countries. Vitamin A deficiency also contributes to maternal mortalityand other poor outcomes in pregnancy and lactation.[1][2][3][4]

Vitamin A deficiency also diminishes the ability to fight infections. In countries where children are not immunized, infectious disease likemeasles have higher fatality rates. As elucidated by Dr. Alfred Sommer, even mild, subclinical deficiency can also be a problem, as itmay increase children’s risk of developing respiratory and diarrheal infections, decrease growth rate, slow bone development, and decrease likelihood of survival from serious illness.

Alfred (Al) Sommer‘s research on vitamin A in the 1970s and 1980s revealed that dosing severely vitamin A deficient children with an inexpensive, large dose vitamin A capsule twice a year reduces child mortality by as much as 34 percent.[1] The World Bank and, recently, the Copenhagen Consensus list vitamin Asupplementation as one of the most cost-effective health interventions in the world.[2][3]

Pellagra is a vitamindeficiency disease most commonly caused by a chronic lack of niacin(vitamin B3) in the diet. It can be caused by decreased intake of niacin or tryptophan[1], and possibly by excessive intake of leucine.[2]It may also result from alterations in protein metabolism in disorders such as carcinoid syndrome. A deficiency of the amino acidlysine can lead to a deficiency of niacin as well, meaning that another potential cause of pellagra is lysine deficiency.[3]

Deficiency does not typically cause symptoms in adults but may lead to impaired growth and neurological disorders in infants. Multiple carboxylase deficiency, an inborn error of metabolism, can lead to biotin deficiency even when dietary biotin intake is normal.

Deficiency results in a macrocytic anemia, and elevated levels of homocysteine. Deficiency in pregnant women can lead to birth defects. Supplementation is often recommended during pregnancy. Researchers have shown that folic acid might also slow the insidious effects of age on the brain.

The anemia is thought to be due to problems in DNA synthesis, specifically in the synthesis of thymine, which is dependent on products of the MTR reaction. Other blood cell types such as white blood cells and platelets are often also low. Bone marrow examination may showmegaloblastichemopoiesis. Theanemia responds completely to vitamin B12; theneurological symptoms (if any) respond partly or completely, depending on prior severity and duration.

Vitamin C deficiency

Symptoms and Signs of Vitamin C Deficiency

It takes several months of low amounts of vitamin C to lead to the symptoms of scurvy. The classic symptoms are bleeding gums, scaly skin, loose teeth, fatigue, increased risk of infection, and poor wound healing. Children and infants with an ascorbic acid deficiency usually have poor bone growth and anemia.

This animation (requires RealVideoPlayer) shows the connection between cardiovascular disease and the sailor’s disease scurvy. As opposed to animals, the human body cannot synthesize vitamin C. Ascorbate deficiency results in two distinct morphological changes of the vascular wall: Impaired vascular stability due to decreased collagen synthesis and loss of the endothelial barrier function.

The sailors of earlier centuries died within a few months from hemorrhagic blood loss due to lack of endogenous ascorbate synthesis combined with a vitamin deficient diet aboard. When the Indians gave those sailors tea from tree barks and other vitamin rich nutrition, blood loss was stopped and the vascular wall healed naturally.Today, everyone gets some vitamin C and open scurvy is rare. But almost everyone suffers from chronic vitamin deficiency. Over decades, micro lesions develop in the vascular wall, especially in areas of high mechanical stress such as the coronary arteries.

Vitamin E deficiency causes neurological problems due to poor nerve conduction. These include neuromuscular problems such as spinocerebellar ataxia andmyopathies.[1] Deficiency can also causeanemia, due to oxidative damage to red blood cells.

Vitamin E deficiency is rare in humans and is almost never caused by a poor diet.[1]Instead, there are three specific situations when a vitamin E deficiency is likely to occur. It is seen in persons who cannot absorb dietary fat, has been found in premature, very low birth weight infants (birth weights less than 1500 grams, or 3.5 pounds), and is seen in individuals with rare disorders of fat metabolism.[2]

Individuals who cannot absorb fat may require a vitamin E supplement because some dietary fat is needed for the absorption of vitamin E from the gastrointestinal tract. Anyone diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, individuals who have had part or all of their stomach removed, and individuals with malabsorptive problems such as Crohn’s disease, liver disease or pancreatic insufficiency may not absorb fat and should discuss the need for supplemental vitamin E with their physician. People who cannot absorb fat often pass greasy stools or have chronic diarrhea and bloating.

Very low birth weight infants may be deficient in vitamin E. A neonatologist, apediatrician specializing in the care of newborns, typically evaluates the nutritional needs of premature infants.

Abetalipoproteinemia is a rare inherited disorder of fat metabolism that results in poor absorption of dietary fat and vitamin E.[3] The vitamin E deficiency associated with this disease causes problems such as poor transmission of nerve impulses, muscle weakness, and degeneration of the retina that can cause blindness.Individuals with abetalipoproteinemia may be prescribed special vitamin E supplements by a physician to treat this disorder. In addition, there is a rare genetic condition termed isolated vitamin E deficiency or ataxia with isolated with vitamin E deficiency, caused by mutations in the gene for the tocopherol transfer protein.[4] These individuals have an extremely poor capacity to absorb vitamin E and develop neurological complications that are reversed by high doses of vitamin E.

Symptoms of Vitamin K DeficienciesVitamin K is known to be needed to coagulate blood and to maintain proper bone density. It plays a key role in proper development of the fetus. Deficiencies of vitamin K have been linked to:

Iron deficiency (sideropenia or hypoferremia) is one of the most commonly known forms of nutritional deficiencies. In the human body, iron is present in all cellsand has several vital functions—as a carrier of oxygen to the tissues from the lungs in the form of hemoglobin, as a transport medium for electrons within the cells in the form of cytochromes, and as an integral part of enzymereactions in various tissues. Too little iron can interfere with these vital functions and lead to morbidity anddeath.

Information on boron deficiency in humans is minimal; however, it appears a deficiency in boron impacts mineral metabolism, cognitive function, steroid hormone and vitamin levels, and bone integrity. (20) Boron-deficient diets have resulted in embryological defects in some but not all animals (e.g., not in rodents), pointing to a possible role in reproduction and/or development. Limited growthis also commonly noted in boron-depleted animals, (17,21) while boron-deficient chicks present increased insulin secretion. (19,22)

Clinical Applications Anemia

Boron supplementation to subjects who had previously followed a dietary regimen deficient in boron resulted in increases in blood hemoglobin concentrations, mean corpuscular hemoglobin, and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, and decreases in hematocrit, red cell count and platelet count. (23)

Osteo- and Rheumatoid Arthritis

In a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of 20 subjects with osteoarthritis, half of the subjects receiving a daily supplement containing 6 mg boron noted subjective improvement in their condition. (24)

Collectively, data indicate that boron might play a role in human brain function, alertness, and cognitive performance. In humans, low boron intake compared to high boron intake was associated with poor short- and long-term memory, eye-hand coordination, and manual dexterity. (26) Boron deficiency has also been associated with decreased brain electrical activity similar to brainwave patterns observed in nonspecific malnutrition. (27)

Selenium deficiency is thought to contribute toautoimmune disease by making the body more susceptible to nutritional and biochemical stresses as well as infectious diseases. Three diseases caused directly by selenium deficiency include Keshan Disease, which causes an enlarged heart, Kashin-Beck Disease, which causes osteoarthropathy, and Myxedematous Endemic Cretinism, a form of hypothyroidism which results in mental retardation.

Fatigue

Miscarriage

Hyperthyroidism

Lack of mental dexterity

However, there are diseases that can be caused by this deficiency as well and they include Keshan disease and Kashin-Beck disease.

Keshan disease is viral disease and mostly affects children. It is caused by a deficient amount of selenium present in the body. The main symptom of this condition is myocardial necrosis, which leads to the weakening of the heart and a general weakness of the heart muscle. Keshan disease can also make a personmuch more susceptible to developing other illnesses.

Kashin-Beck disease occurs when the body is deficient of both selenium and iodine. The symptoms this can then present include the degeneration of cartilage.

So, what exactly causes a selenium deficiency in the first place? Eating food that is grown in soil lacking this nutrient is thought to be the primary cause. Also, people suffering from intestinal disorders that make the absorption of selenium next to impossible are at an elevated risk for developing this deficiency.

Treatment usually consists of taking selenium supplements until the body’s levels have returned to normal. However, supplements may always be necessary if absorption is a problem.

Adults with insomnia have been shown to have lower melatonin levels.4 Frequent travelers and shift workers are also likely to benefit from melatonin for the resynchronization of their sleep schedules,5 though a melatonin “deficiency” as such does not exist for these people. Patients with heart disease have been reported to have low melatonin levels, but whether this abnormality increases the risk of heart disease or whether heart disease leads to the low melatonin level is not yet known.6 People with schizophrenia were found to have low melatonin output and experienced significantly improved sleep following melatonin replacement supplementation.7

Adeficient production of melatonin can result in anxiety and mood disorders, lowered basal body temperature insomnia, elevated estrogen/progesterone ratio, and immune suppression associated with cancer.

The diets of all Americans are likely to be deficient……..Even a mild deficiency causes sensitiveness to noise, nervousness, irritability, mental depression, confusion, twitching, trembling, apprehension, insomnia, muscle weakness and cramps in the toes, feet, legs, or fingers.

Magnesium (Mg) is a trace mineral that is known to be required for several hundred different functions in the body. A significant portion of the symptoms of many chronic disorders are identical to symptoms of magnesium deficiency. Studies show many people in the U.S. today do not consume the daily recommended amounts of Mg. A lack of this important nutrient may be a major factor in many common health problems in industrialized countries. Common conditions such as mitral valve prolapse, migraines, attention deficit disorder, fibromyalgia, asthma and allergies have all been linked to a Mg deficiency. Perhaps not coincidentally, these conditions also tend to occur in clusters together within the same individual. A magnesium deficiency as a root cause would provide a logical explanation of why some people suffer from a constellation of these types of problems.Many of the following conditions commonly occur in conjunction with each other and all have been linked to a Mg deficiency.

Calcium is the most abundant mineral found in the human body. The majority (99%) is stored in the bones and teeth; the rest is stored in muscle tissue and blood. In addition to bone building and remodeling, calcium is also responsible for muscle contraction, central nervous function and hormone secretion. Calcium deficiency is of major concern in the United States. An estimated 44-87% of Americans don’t get enough

The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday announced a gradual but potentially far-reaching effort to reduce the amount of salt Americans consume in a bid to combat high blood pressure, heart disease, strokes and other health problems that have soared to near-epidemic proportions.

1985. A ten-year study of nearly 8,000 Hawaiian Japanese men concluded: “No relation was found between salt intake and the incidence of stroke.”

1995. An eight-year study of a New York City hypertensive population stratified for sodium intake levels found those on low-salt diets had more than four times as many heart attacks as those on normal-sodium diets – the exact opposite of what the “salt hypothesis” would have predicted.

1997. An analysis by NHLBI’s Dr. Cutler of the first six years’ data from the MRFIT database documented no health outcomes benefits of lower-sodium diets.

1997. A ten-year follow-up study to the huge Scottish Heart Health Study found no improved health outcomes for those on low-salt diets.

1998. An analysis of the health outcomes over twenty years from those in the massive US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES I) documented a 20% greater incidence of heart attacks among those on low-salt diets compared to normal-salt diets

1998. A health outcomes study in Finland, reported to the American Heart Association that no health benefits could be identified and concluded “…our results do not support the recommendations for entire populations to reduce dietary sodium intake to prevent coronary heart disease.”

1999. A further analysis of the MRFIT database, this time using fourteen years’ data, confirmed no improved health benefit from low-sodium diets. Its author conceded that there is “no relationship observed between dietary sodium and mortality.”

1999. A study of Americans found that less sodium-dense diets did reduce the cardiovascular mortality of one population sub-set, overweight men – the article reporting the findings did not explain why this obese group actually consumed less sodium than normal-weight individuals in the study.

2001. A Finnish study reported an increase in cardiovascular events for obese men (but not women or normal-weight individuals of either gender) – the article, however, failed to adjust for potassium intake levels which many researchers consider a key associated variable.

2002. In September, 2002, the prestigious Cochrane Collaboration produced the latest and highest-quality meta-analysis of clinical trials. It was published in the British Medical Journal and confirmed earlier meta-analyses’ conclusions that significant salt reduction would lead to very small blood pressure changes in sensitive populations and no health benefits.

2003. In June 2003, Dutch researchers using a massive database in Rotterdam concluded that “variations in dietary sodium and potassium within the range commonly observed in Westernized societies have no material effect on the occurrence of cardiovascular events and mortality at old age.”

2004. In July 2004, the first “outcomes” study identifying a population risk appeared in Stroke magazine. Researchers found that in a Japanese population, “low” sodium intakes (about 20% above Americans’ average intake) had one-third the incidence of fatal strokes of those consuming twice as much sodium as Americans.

2006. A March 2006 analysis of the federal NHANES II database in The American Journal of Medicine found a 37% higher cardiovascular mortality rate for low-sodium dieters

2007. A February 2007 reported in the International Journal of Epidemiology studied 40,547 Japanese over seven years and found “the Japanese dietary pattern was associated with a decreased risk of CVD mortality, despite its relation to sodium intake and hypertension.”

2007. An April 2007 article in the British Medical Journal found a 25% lower risk of CV events in a group which years earlier had achieved significant sodium reduction during two clinical trials (TOHP I and TOHP II).

2007. An October 2007 analysis of a large Dutch database published in the European Journal of Epidemiology documented no benefit of low-salt diets in reducing stroke or heart attack incidence nor lowering death rates.

2008. A May 2008 examination of NHANES II (the largest US federal database of nutrition and health) published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine confirmed two earlier studies of earlier NHANES surveys that there is no health benefit (CVD or all-cause mortality) for those on low-sodium diets.

Both sea salt and rock salt were well known to the ancient Greeks who noted that eating salty food affected basic body functions such as digestion and excretion (urine and stools). This led to salt being used medically. The healing methods of Hippocrates (460 BC) especially made frequent use of salt. Hippocrates mentions inhalation of steam from salt-water. We know today that the antiinflammatory effects of inhaled salt provide relief from respiratory symptoms (c). Thus, 2000 years ago, Greek medicine had already discovered topical use of salt for skin lesions, drinking salty or mineralized waters for digestive troubles and inhaling salt for respiratory diseases.

India is in the midst of a flood of suicides among farmers. A new feature film written and directed by Anusha Rizwi and produced by Bollywood megastar Aamir Khan, called Peepli Live, takes a look at this grim topic.

The vast majority of people in India still farm for a living, but are caught between deep debt and the erratic nature of seasonal change.

Indian farmers are pressured into mortgaging their farms to purchase genetically modified seeds, pesticides, and fertilizer from American companies like Monsanto.

According to AlterNet:

“Since GM seeds are patented by Monsanto, their repeated use each year requires constant licensing fees that keep farmers impoverished. One bad yield due to drought or other reasons, plunges farmers so deep into debt that they resort to suicide. One study estimates that 150,000 farmers have killed themselves in the past ten years.”

Meanwhile, in the U.S., District Judge Jeffrey White, a federal judge in California, has banned the planting of genetically modified Roundup Ready sugar beets created by Monsanto. The beets are engineered to withstand Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer.

White said he was “troubled by maintaining the status quo that consists of 95 percent of sugar beets being genetically engineered while [the USDA] conducts the environmental review that should have occurred before the sugar beets were deregulated.”

The ban does not affect crops already planted and harvested for sugar.

The St. Louis Business Journal reports:

“Environmental groups … filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in January 2008 to challenge the deregulation of Roundup Ready sugar beets by the USDA … Opponents say the beets promote superweeds, weeds that cannot easily be killed because they have developed a tolerance to weed killer. They also raise concerns about the contamination of conventional and organic crops.”

Biotechnology has changed the face of farming as we know it, and with each passing year, we move further away from the ancient farming practice of saving the best seeds for replanting the following season – a method that is both inexpensive and proven successful for optimal crop quality.

Now, the increased use of genetically modified seeds that must be purchased anew each year are starting to take its toll. A mere 15 years into commercial GM seed use, we’re now seeing GM crops contaminating conventional and organic crops; different GM varieties combining with each other in the wild, creating unintended GM hybrids; and farmers driven to desperate acts due to financial devastation.

Genetic Engineering May Sterilize Nature. Then What?

Consider this: Monsanto’s “suicide gene” has not only been inserted into certain food crops, rendering them sterile in order to force farmers to buy new seeds. This technology is now spreading to other industries, such as forestry.

Scientific American reported on this in January. Two paper industry giants are planning to replace the native pine in the forests of southwestern US with genetically engineered, sterile, eucalyptus. By making the trees unable to reproduce naturally, they propose there’s no need to worry about the GM eucalyptus turning into an invasive species…

On the contrary. I believe there are plenty of indications that the introduction of sterile plants of various kinds may allow this genetic ability to “turn off” reproductive capability to spread into other parts of nature, in ways that none of us can predict.

How are GM Crops Provoking Farmers to Commit Suicide?

According to the National Crime Records Bureau of India, more than 182,900 Indian farmers took their own lives between 1997 and 2007. It estimates 46 Indian farmers commit suicide every day. That equates to roughly one suicide every 30 minutes!

Some will argue that natural events are to blame, such as lack of rain, but crop failures have occurred before, and it didn’t push thousands of farmers to end their lives by drinking pesticide.

No, the increased desperation can be traced directly back to the use of patented, and therefore expensive, seeds, and the unconscionable tactics of Monsanto.

Monsanto has been ruthless in their drive to use India as a testing ground for genetically modified crops. Over the past decade, millions of Indian farmers have been promised radically increased harvests and income if they switch from their traditional age tested farming methods to genetically modified (GM) Bt cotton seeds.

So, they borrow money to buy GM seeds, which need certain pesticides that were previously unnecessary, which requires even more money. When rain fall is sparse, the GM crops actually fare far worse than traditional crops – a fact that these farmers oftentimes don’t learn until it’s too late and they’re standing there with failed crops, spiraling debts, and no income.

And by next season, they have to do it all over again because the GM seeds cannot be saved and replanted. They must be purchased again.

In addition, GM crops have spawned:

Bt resistant pests

New pests

Superweeds

For example, the evolution of Bt resistant bollworms worldwide have now been confirmed and documented, and what used to be minor pests are now becoming major problems – such as mirid bugs, which have increased 12-fold since 1997 in China, and can be directly linked to the scale of China’s Bt cotton cultivation.

In addition, the promise that GM crops would reduce pesticide/herbicide use has turned out to be entirely false.

The use of Roundup herbicide has increased dramatically since the GM Roundup Ready crops were introduced. In the first 13 years, American farmers sprayed an additional 383 million pounds of herbicide due to these herbicide-tolerant crops. And now the repeated exposures have given Mother Nature all she needs to stage her comeback in the form of devastating superweeds.

Since 1996, when GM crops were first introduced, at least nine species of U.S. weeds have developed resistance to glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide, which means farmers must use additional herbicides, some of them even more toxic than Roundup.

In the end, we’re left with all of the downsides and none of the intended benefits.

Bollywood Brings Indian Farmers’ Plight to the Big Screen

“The story is set in an Indian village named Peepli where one young debt-burdened farmer named Natha is talked into taking his own life after he learns that his family will be financially compensated through a government program created to alleviate the loss of farmers taking their own lives.”

The film features Bollywood megastar Aamir Khan. An interview with him about the film and the plight of Indian farmers can be found here.

Hopefully this film is successful in raising awareness about the destructive power of this technology.

US Judge Halts Deregulation of Roundup Ready Sugar Beets – For Now…

Meanwhile, the US has been granted a temporary reprieve from yet another GM food.

The U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White, a federal judge in California, recently banned the planting of Monsanto’s GM Roundup-resistant sugar beets. The ruling, which can be read here, does not affect any crop that has already been planted or harvested, however, so GM sugar will still reach the market place.

The GM sugar beet is called Genuity, and was introduced during the 2008-2009 season.

Although considered a victory, the judge’s ruling did not grant plaintiffs’ motion for a permanent injunction against GM sugar beet plantings.

So not only are you exposed to foods that contain built-in toxins, you’re also consuming larger amounts of toxic residues on the food, for the simple fact that more is now being used.

Pesticide and herbicide residues are very difficult to remove from grains, fruits and vegetables. Even meticulous washing cannot get rid of it all.

What Can You Do to Affect Change?

Did you know that genetically modified foods are so prevalent in the US that if you randomly pick an item off your grocery store’s shelves, you have a 75 percent chance of picking a food with GM ingredients?

It’s true. At least seven out of every 10 food items have been genetically modified, and there’s more to come.

It’s actually simpler than you might think… By buying only non-GM foods.

Must-Have Guide to NON-GMO Foods

The True Food Shopping Guide is a great tool for helping you determine which brands and products contain GM ingredients. It lists 20 different food categories that include everything from baby food to chocolate.

Additionally, here are four simple steps to decrease your consumption of GM foods as much as possible:

Reduce or eliminate processed foods in your diet. The fact that 75 percent of processed foods contain GM ingredients is only one of the many reasons to stick to a whole foods diet.

Read produce and food labels. Conventionally raised soybeans and corn make up the largest portion of genetically modified crops. Ingredients made from these foods include high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), corn flour and meal, dextrin, starch, soy sauce, margarine, and tofu.

Buy organic produce. By definition, food that is certified organic must be free from all GM organisms, produced without artificial pesticides and fertilizers and from an animal reared without the routine use of antibiotics, growth promoters or other drugs. Additionally, grass-fed beef will not have been fed GM corn feed.

New York –March 2010– Over 2,700 professionals (including over 260 dentists) urge the US Congress to stop water fluoridation until Congressional hearings are conducted, citing scientific evidence that fluoridation, long promoted to fight tooth decay, is ineffective and has serious health risks. See statement: http://www.fluorideaction.org/statement.august.2007.html

Much of the fluoridation chemicals are purchased from China according to Kip Duchon, Fluoridation Engineer for the Centers for Disease Control. (a) Amesbury, MA water engineers found the Chinese fluoride chemicals clogged up their system. ( c)

Also, eleven Environmental Protection Agency employee unions representing over 7000 environmental and public health professionals called for a moratorium on drinking water fluoridation programs across the country, and have asked EPA management to recognize fluoride as posing a serious risk of causing cancer in people. (b)

Since the professionals’ statement was first issued (Aug 2007), the following occurred:

– The Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment,Canada’s leading voice on environmental health issues, released a statement opposing fluoridation. (2)

– May 2009, Great Lakes United (GLU) supports the end of water fluoridation. GLU is made up organizations representing environmentalists, conservationists, hunters and anglers, labor unions, community groups, and citizens of the United States, Canada, and First Nations and Tribes. (13)

– The National Kidney Foundation dropped its fluoridation support replacing it with this caution: “Individuals with CKD [Chronic Kidney Disease] should be notified of the potential risk of fluoride exposure.” (3)

– Researchers reporting in the Oct 6 2007 British Medical Journal indicate that fluoridation never was proven safe or effective and may be unethical. (4)

– “A qualitative review of …studies found a consistent and strong association between the exposure to fluoride and low IQ,” concluded Tang el al., in “Fluoride and Children’s Inte lligence: A Meta-analysis” inBiological Trace Element Research (5)

– Scientific American editors wrote in January 2008, “Some recent studies suggest that over-consumption of fluoride can raise the risks of disorders affecting teeth, bones, the brain and the thyroid gland”

– Dr. A. K. Susheela, a leading fluoride expert, explains in a video why US physicians overlook fluoride as a possible cause of diseases commonly caused by fluoride. http://tinyurl.com/Susheela

– A study in the Fall 2008 Journal of Public Health Dentistry reveals that cavity-free teeth have little to do with fluoride intake.Researchers report, “The benefits of fluoride are mostly topical…while fluorosis is clearly more dependent on fluoride intake.”

– Research published in Biological Trace Element Research (April 2009). indicates that blood fluoride levels were significantly higher in patients with osteosarcoma than in control groups. (13) Osteosarcoma, a rare bone cancer, occurs mostly in children and young adults

– Children’s cavity rates are similar whether water is fluoridated or not, according to data published in the July 2009 Journal of the American Dental Association by dentist J.V. Kumar of the NY State Health Department (15).

– All infant formula, whether concentrated or not, contain fluoride at levels that can discolor teeth – even organic, according to research published in the October 2009 Journal of the American Dental Association. (16)

A Tennessee State legislator, Joey Hensley, who is also an MD is urging all Tennessee Water Districts to stop fluoridation, reported a Tennessee newspaper on 11/29/08. At least 30 Tennessee water districts have already complied with his request.(6)

On 1/5/09, the Burlington Board of Health recommended that Burlington cease fluoridation because fluoridation can harm some people. (7)

On 1/6/09, a Canadian town, Drayton, stopped fluoridation, not to save money, but because it was in the best interests of residents, said the Mayor. (8)

The Arkansas Oral Health Director is accused of giving eight “false or misleading statements” on fluoridation to an Arkansas legislative Committee. (12)

Fluoride jeopardizes health – even at low levels deliberately added to public water supplies, according to data presented in a 2006 National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) National Research Council (NRC) report. Fluoride poses risks to the thyroid gland, diabetics, kidney patients, high water drinkers and others and can severely damage children’s teeth. (11) At least three panel members advise avoiding fluoridated water.

– The new American Dental Association policy recommending infant formula NOT be prepared with fluoridated water.

– The CDC’s concession that the predominant benefit of fluoride is topical not systemic.

– CDC data showing that dental fluorosis, caused by fluoride over-exposure, now impacts one third of American children.

– Major research indicating little difference in decay rates between fluoridated and non-fluoridated communities.

– A Harvard study indicating a possible link between fluoridation and bone cancer.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a DC watchdog, revealed that a Harvard professor concealed the fluoridation/bone cancer connection for three years. EWG President Ken Cook states, “It is time for the US to recognize that fluoridation has serious risks that far outweigh any minor benefits, and unlike many other environmental issues, it’s as easy to end as turning off a valve at the water plant.”

A study demonstrates the toxicity of three genetically modified corn varieties from the American seed company Monsanto, according to the Committee for Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering.

“For the first time in the world, we’ve proven that GMO are neither sufficiently healthy nor proper to be commercialized … Each time, for all three GMOs, the kidneys and liver, which are the main organs that react to a chemical food poisoning, had problems,” said Gilles-Eric Séralini, an expert member of the Commission for Biotechnology Reevaluation.

The researchers based their analyses on the data supplied by Monsanto to health authorities to obtain the green light for commercialization, but they draw different conclusions after new statistical calculations.

Dr. Mercola’s Comments:

And rightly so—they clearly concealed the results of this study, massaging the data until they could slide it by as supporting the safety of their product.

It took an independent team of researchers to reexamine data and get the truth out.

Isn’t it interesting that every time Monsanto conducts scientific research on its own products, the conclusions are that they are safe? But each time independent scientists study them, all kinds of horrific side effects are uncovered.

One former Monsanto scientist said he knew of several fellow Monsanto researchers involved in feeding studies who have all (secretly) switched to organic milk.

What does that tell you?

If You Plant It, They Will Come

The United States has planted more GM crops than any other country every year since 1996, when GM crops were first made available commercially.

It’s bad enough that the United States allows GM crops to be grown at all—and it’s even worse that we grow two-thirds of the GM crops worldwide.

By far, corn is the crop taking up the most acreage.

The 2007 U.S. corn crop was one for the record books at 13.1 billion bushels of production, eclipsing the previous high set in 2004 of 11.8 billion bushels, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). The 2007 production level was up 24 percent from 2006[i].

We are still reserving tens of millions of acres for genetically modified corn!

The Scientific Studies Couldn’t Be Clearer

Biology professor Bela Darvas of Hungary‘s Debrecen University discovered that Monsanto’s Mon 810 corn is lethal to two Hungarian protected species and one insect classified as rare. Now Monsanto refuses to give Darvas any more Mon 810 to use in his studies.

They also refused his request for Mon 863, another GM variety.

So, not only has MON 810 been shown to cause serious damage to animals, but it may also wipe out protected plant and insect species.

A mountain of evidence now exists about the troubling effects of GM corn:

Several US farmers reported sterility and fertility problems among pigs and cows fed GM corn.

In Germany, twelve cows that had eaten GM corn mysteriously died.

In feeding trials with chickens, twice the number of chickens died when fed GM corn as those fed non-GM corn.

Adding to the potential devastation is the fact that corn is a wind-pollinated plant, which means it can spread from one acre to another. While growers of GM food often say their crops will be contained and unable to contaminate nearby fields, from an environmental perspective, contamination between GM and non-GM crops is generally acknowledged to be unavoidable.

What can stop windstorms, tornadoes or other weather from blowing GM pollen or seeds onto non-GM crops?

Not a whole lot.

The environmental impact of GM crops may be worse than the health impact. Genetic pollution is self-propagating. It is altering our biosphere in ways that could outlast climate change and nuclear waste.

You can’t “recall” genes from the environment—just like putting the genie back in the bottle.

Although Monsanto doesn’t believe (or admit) this is a possibility, their shortsighted focus on profits is blinding them to the very real threats this technology is posing to the viability of the human race.

Monsanto’s influence in the government is legendary. Consequently, policy makers have not heeded the warnings to do long-term safety testing.

How Genetic Modification is Actually Executed

The making of a GM seed isn’t the highly precise operation you might expect.

According to Jeffrey M. Smith, author of Seeds of Deception and Genetic Roulette, once a gene is identified that creates a protein that they want, it is shot into the DNA with a “gun.”

They don’t care where the gene ends up…as long as it attaches somewhere.

This blasting creates all manner of problems. In fact, collateral damage is a given—5 percent of the surrounding genes can be disrupted! The DNA is sometimes truncated, sometimes mutated, creating proteins that are different and predictablyunpredictable.

Is it any wonder, then, how genetically modified foods carry with them so many unintended and devastating consequences?

According to Jeffrey Smith, the most common result of GM is surprise side effects. These side effects come in four main categories:

Allergenic

Toxic

Carcinogenic

Anti-nutritional

To bump up the desired GM effects, developers have been inserting what’s called a “promoter,” which has been derived from a virus. A promoter acts like a switch to turn on the gene it’s attached to. And the promoter’s action is not confined to the gene it rides in on—it’s been known to turn on other genes around it, permanently, at high volume.

It can turn on an allergen, a toxin, a carcinogen—we don’t know—it’s genetic roulette.

The promoters could switch on dormant viruses, producing super-diseases. One pesticide-tolerant gene called “the liberty link” could turn your body into a pesticide factory for life. The viral gene might transfer to your body a permanent suppression of your viral defenses.

We just don’t know.

And the reason we don’t know is that the government refuses to demand the rigorous testing of these GM products BEFORE permitting them into your food supply.

A Bad Gut Feeling

GM industry representatives falsely claim that when you eat a genetically modified food, the DNA is destroyed by digestion.

Researchers have now proven this is false.

British researchers demonstrated that GM DNA from crops can find its way into human gut bacteria, creating health risks. The concern is that the antibiotic marker genes inserted with the GM material could cause a person to be resistant to antibiotic medicines.[iii]

The study by Newcastle University in the UK was conducted on 7 human volunteers who, in the past, had their lower intestines removed and now use colostomy bags. After eating a meal containing GM soy, researchers were surprised to find that a relatively large proportion of GM DNA survived the digestive process.

In 3 of the 7 volunteers, they found bacteria had taken up the herbicide-resistant gene from the GM food at a very low level.

And this was after only one GM meal.

Not only that, but researchers also found “Roundup ready” gut bacteria from past GM soybean consumption. This was NOT from the current experiment—it was evidence that similar gene transfer had occurred in the past, from prior consumption of GM “Roundup ready” soy. (Roundup ready is the term used to mean soy that was engineered to be resistant to the herbicide Roundup.)

Michael Antonio, a senior lecturer in molecular genetics at King’s College Medical School in London, said this study was significant because the researchers demonstrated that you can get GM plant DNA in your gut bacteria, which was previously considered impossible.

This is the first clear evidence that antibiotic marker genes can jump to the bacteria in your stomach and increase your risk for an antibiotic-resistant infection.

The Mission to Exterminate GM From Our Food Supply

There are two strategies the non-GM movement is working on to rid our food supply of GM products:

Labeling all foods for their GM/non-GM status

Educating the public so that it will choose non-GM foods over GM foods.

The labeling campaign is making progress, thanks to the persistence of Jeffrey Smith and the Institute for Responsible Technology, an organization whose goal is to end the genetic engineering of our food supply and the outdoor release of GM crops. If you would like to sign the petition to President Obama in support of mandatory labeling of GM foods, click here.

But don’t wait for the labels to protect yourself and your family.

Nearly all GM foods can be avoided by steering clear of four basic food products:

Corn

Soy

Cottonseed

Canola

Additionally, avoid the following produce that is commonly GM by purchasing only organic varieties:

Zucchini

Crookneck squash

Hawaiian papaya

Sugar derived from sugar beets (new GM crop as of 2009)

For more specifics, the Institute for Responsible Technology has compiled an excellent Non-GMO Shopping Guide that you can download for free.

According to Jeffrey Smith, when people are educated about GM foods and provided a choice of products to buy, surveys show that at least 90 percent will opt for non-GM.

Therefore, between labeling products and a massive education campaign, GM foods will become a thing of the past. Once the tipping point is reached, the demand for non-GM products will be so fierce that market forces will smother the GM market once and for all.